Lives in Cricket No 11 - CP Lewis

it was time for cricket to change, and for the South Wales C.C. to move forward. In order for this to happen, a line had to be drawn under the past, so at the 1886 annual meeting, J.P.Jones proposed dissolving the South Wales Club and asking the managing committee to oversee the formation of county sides. This was agreed upon and Jones soon made arrangements for a series of matches in 1886 at Newport, the Arms Park and Llanelli between a Glamorgan side and the Rest of South Wales. Nothing eventually came of the games at either Cardiff and no scorecard survives from Llanelli, but Jones was able to lead a Glamorgan eleven into the field at Newport against an eighteen of South Wales – a match which symbolized this change to the basic structure of cricket in the region and the end of C.P.’s role at the forefront of sporting developments. Since his brief five-match stretch in first-class cricket at Oxford, C.P.Lewis had had thirteen seasons in the highest class of club cricket, and it seemed an appropriate time for him to fade from the scene. When South Wales played their final match, at Swansea on 9 and 10 August, against M.C.C., who had brought down six first-class cricketers in their side, he did not play, even though his friend J.T.D.Llewelyn turned out for the visitors. He wasn’t even in the Llandovery team which played Swansea at Llandovery, for long an important match, at the end of August. By now, he had been elected to Llandovery Town Council 33 and was taking work and civic affairs seriously. His reputation as a trustworthy local solicitor was growing, as was his waistline. South Wales Cricket Club: A Dream Dies 91 Errant headgear. Two of C.P.’s cricket caps - left is South Wales C.C. and right Carmarthenshire C.C.C. - which were found in a Llandovery bank in the 1990s. Lewis seems to have had a penchant for hooped caps. 33 As an independent. Political parties were very rare in local government at that time, although no doubt he formed ‘political’ alliances of various kinds during his time as a local authority member. He became an alderman in 1899 – an appointed, rather than an elected member of the Council – eventually retiring in 1920.